


progress report

by ampxrsand



Category: Bandom, Fall Out Boy
Genre: Divorce, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Happy Ending, Hiatus, Implied/Referenced Drug Addiction, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Panic Attacks, Pete and Patrick (Fall Out Boy), Post-Divorce
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-24
Updated: 2014-08-24
Packaged: 2018-02-12 11:25:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,533
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2108040
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ampxrsand/pseuds/ampxrsand
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>pete doesn't know how to feel about the divorce, so he goes to see the one person who is always there for him</p>
            </blockquote>





	progress report

Pete never finds a good time to take off his wedding ring, if that's a thing: a good time to physically demonstrate the collapse of your marriage. When Patrick opens the door, Pete manages to keep his face unusually emotionless, but he's wringing his hands nervously and that gives him away. The ring is the first thing Patrick sees, and then he's pulling Pete into a tight hug by the sleeves of his shirt (the same shirt he's been wearing since she told him, but it's not like Patrick isn't used to Pete smelling a little weird). They haven't seen each other for a little over a month, and Patrick hasn't held Pete like this since before their hiatus started. Pete hasn't fucked up this bad for that same amount of time, minus two days.

It was just like, one day Pete and Patrick were best friends, maybe with a few too many issues between them, but still, and then the next Pete was shaking uncontrollably with Andy holding him upright in an airport bar, while Patrick was red in the face and totally not holding back any tears whatsoever, mumbling things like 'I'll finish this tour, and then that's it' to Dirty, who'd dragged him outside after the second time he'd knocked Pete onto the floor.

The idiot, he hadn't even tried to fight back.

No one had been able to tell Pete he hadn't fucked up that day, not even Pete - hell, not even Patrick. And the last two days had been the exact same blur of guilt/bitterness/powerlessness until he'd caved in and jogged all the way to Patrick's house, buzzing at the gate - fuck, the gate seemed to be specifically to keep out Pete - and humming "Guess who, Stump," which was actually a pretty big achievement as he wasn't sure he was still capable of actual speech.

Pete doesn't notice Patrick dragging him towards the sofa until he finds himself sitting on it, two arms snaking around his neck and pulling him into his sweater. It smells like soap, and faintly of mint and cologne. As nice as it is - as much as it reminds Pete he's dumped himself on Patrick smelling of cheap booze and sweat - it's all wrong, and it doesn't stop Pete from thinking about every single mistake he's ever made in his entire life.

Patrick is supposed to smell like weed, from always being so close to other people smoking it, and excitement, from always being so close to the next show, and Pete, from always being so close to him. The younger man is unfamiliarly clean and slim beneath him, which if anything just shows Pete how much better everyone is without him.

Patrick makes some vague shushing noise and starts rubbing circles into Pete's back, which helps him take a breath he didn't know he'd been holding. Then another. And another. Slow and deep, just like when they were best friends and Patrick was always right next to him to catch his forearms and whisper into his neck, soothing.

"Why?" is all Patrick asks when Pete stops sobbing. He heard on the grapevine probably an hour after it happened, and spent all of that night watching the news articles pile up online. Patrick should have known. He should: busy writing or recording or promoting or redecorating his house or anything, Pete should still come first.

They last spoke on the phone fifteen days ago. Pete's speech was slurred and Patrick believed him when he said it was because of exhaustion.

"I haven't seen him in three days. Ashlee didn't want him in the house when she told me, y'know?"

Patrick squeezes him closer. "Jesus, Pete. Have you slept since then?"

Pete pulls back enough to be able to fix Patrick with an incredulous gaze. "I couldn't sleep when I was happily married and travelling the world with my best friends playing sold out arenas every night."

He has a point. Patrick pulls him back into a hug, nosing the top of his head.

They don't speak for a while, both too wrapped up to in their own thoughts for the silence to be comfortable. However, when he notices it's dark, Patrick shakes Pete off and stands up, half running upstairs to fetch the blankets. He grabs three pillows from the guest room, and a pair of pyjamas for Pete, then takes a minute (or twenty five) in the bathroom to clear his head.

He could have been there for Pete, Pete who didn't know where to come but here, who called Patrick golden and brought him into a world he never imagined being a part of, who turned up in two day old clothes with literal suitcases under his eyes.

But he hadn't been. Meeting Andy or Joe for lunch had been weird enough, but meeting Pete outside of anything musical... it had been insane. Pete was the reason Patrick was a singer and not an office clerk, and Patrick had split up his band and somehow thought meeting up with him quarterly could make up for that.

Patrick knows that Fall Out Boy getting back together will always depend on him, just like its demise did. Pete lived for Fall Out Boy, he always did, and Joe and Andy loved it just as much, at first for Pete's sake but eventually because there was just something about it, this union of minds and music and how nobody had really expected it. Well, except for Pete.

Pete who is now sitting up with his face pressed into the sofa, his shoulders shaking almost violently. Patrick freezes at the bottom of the stairs before instinct takes over and he runs to him, sitting down and pulling Pete into his chest. Patrick had thought he was crying, but instead of getting wet, his shirt just gets pulled at by Pete's tattooed fingers. He can't breathe, Patrick realises after a beat, and he's so out of practice and surprised that he doesn't think about what he's doing, just lets his arms press Pete close to him and his mouth whisper soothingly and his lungs take in air deliberately slowly and deeply, setting an example.

It works, Pete's gasps turning into sharp but controlled breaths and finally sobs. Patrick doesn't let go of him when his shirt does get wet, and this makes Pete confident enough to start mumbling things to the younger man, only half coherent, about 'my fault' and 'prescription' and 'not fit' but mostly 'Bronx'. The first clear sentence comes a good ten minutes later, when in a scratchy voice Pete laments, "Don't want to get divorced."

Patrick's heart breaks for him on the spot. From the articles online and Pete's fragmented wailing, he's pieced together what happened, and his stomach is churning and he's too hot and itchy and dizzy but he's not the one who's allowed to be hurting right now, so he stands up and tells Pete to put on his pyjamas because tonight, he's going to sleep. But Pete doesn't move, so he grabs the hem of Pete's head and pulls it over his head, the ribs he discovers underneath making him accidentally ask when Pete last ate. He doesn't answer - maybe he doesn't hear - but Patrick makes a mental note to feed him. He brought down these blue checked pyjamas his aunt bought him for Christmas, and he slides Pete's arms into the sleeves and buttons it up over his chest like a doll. He's not sure what to do about the pants because he doesn't feel like getting Pete naked without him knowing - he's still staring into space - but luckily Pete blinks twice, quick, and is back on the same planet as Patrick.

The younger man figures he can leave Pete to deal with the rest, and tries to think of something he can cook in ten minutes that has two days' worth of vitamins in, looking helplessly around the kitchen for inspiration.

He decides on pasta, because it's filling and he can put veg in the sauce and cheese on top, which he thinks fills all of the food groups. He asks Pete what the food groups are, and then realises that Pete is in the kitchen standing with two dark arms wrapped around his waist while he chops peppers.

"Carbs, fruit and vegetables, protein, uh, fats and...there're five..."

"Dairy."

"Yeah," Pete says, pressing his cheek against Patrick's shoulder.

"Yeah," Patrick repeats, voice weak and feathery in the tense, hot air of his kitchen, and Pete lets go of him in favour of sitting at the table. He doesn't move at all while Patrick cooks, but when the younger man sets down two bowls, he smiles and picks up his fork, which Patrick thinks has got to be progress.

They eat without talking, but the silence is that of two people who know each other so well they can tell what the other is thinking: they don't need to make small talk to fill the gap or ask real questions about each other. Patrick knows Pete is hurting (it doesn't take a genius) and Pete knows Patrick wants to help. It's that simple, but it doesn't feel simple to Patrick as he waits on the couch for Pete to come back downstairs from the bathroom, it feels heavy and near impossible, this void that's formed between them and the language of emotions they weren't together to experience - Pete's been through so much since Patrick saw him that the younger man can hardly understand how Pete's reacting and why.

It gets easier when Pete joins him on the couch, looking about eleven in his pyjamas, aside from the tattoos and the stubble. Patrick misses tracing the tattoos, misses Pete's face touching his, and when Pete asks if Patrick doesn't mind staying with him, the king size bed he has upstairs never occurs to him - Patrick just strips to his boxers and gets ready for a night on the sofa. He bends to pick up a blanket from the floor so he can get it set up, but when he looks to Pete to ask him for help, he sees the bassist's eyes already on him, darting slightly as they scan his chest like a book. He doesn't want to cover himself up, because he's not a little boy, he's an adult with no reason to be self conscious (so why are Pete's dark eyes making him feel like that?) but simultaneously, he's pretty sure he can't pretend he didn't notice Pete looking.

He misses the Pete's body heat more than he misses anything else. He misses the firm structure, the stability of someone who needed him and who he needed.

It's too late for them now, but he can still touch Pete, he's sure-

Luckily, Pete stands up to pull the sofa cushions onto the floor, explaining to Patrick, who only half-listens, that this makes more room and will be like a sleepover. Patrick's still a little bit frozen when Pete finishes making the bed, so the older man pulls him down onto it and latches on, throwing his leg across Patrick's hips and pressing his nose to the crook of Patrick's neck.

"Missed you," he whispers, barely audible as always. "And now you look so different. Look good, though. So good."

It's the first time he's seen skinny-Patrick naked. Well, almost naked. Mostly naked. Without pants. Or without a shirt, for that matter. From where Pete's lying, he can see a faint stretch mark just above the waistband of his underwear, and without thinking, he moves his head down to kiss it, resting his cheek against Patrick's decidedly flat stomach.

"I figured we weren't doing this any more, since you got married," Patrick huffs, unwilling to be used as rebound sex but making no effort to move Pete off him: the older man's skin his dark and hot against his own, and he instinctively curls into it, around it, makes it the centre of his being.

"Well, now I'm getting divorced," Pete says frankly, his breath even hotter than his skin. He turns his head to kiss whatever skin he can get his hands on, and then bites down. Patrick makes a noise that he didn't know he was even capable of making.

"Jesus, Pete, not-" he's interrupted when Pete licks from his boxers all the way up his sternum, and makes a move for Patrick's nipple but is stopped by the younger man's hand keeping his head still. "Not here," he finishes determinedly.

"We're in your house," Pete answers dumbly, frowning in confusion. "Is it - is it like a band thing? Because we're not forced together, because there's all this space-"

"We're on my living room floor. And you're technically still married, and you're not thinking straight, and you're probably gonna be sick or feverish soon if you don't have those meds you got yourself addicted to - which by the way, you're not having - so, no, Pete, not here."

His 'gentle rebuffing' turns into more of a lecture, but Pete doesn't seem too put off: he squirms a little so his head's resting on Patrick's chest, listening to the singer's quiet heart beat, and spreads out his arms and legs so he's almost completely on top of Patrick. Patrick doesn't mind; he just doesn't wanna get used.

Pete's breathing is so unusually slow and calm that Patrick thinks he's asleep, but apparently not, because as if he can read the younger man's mind (he probably can) he's mumbling, "It was real, it was real. Ashlee was real, and you were real, and now she's not real anymore, hasn't been for a long time, but you never stopped, never went away. Never stopped thinking of you, missing you, wishing you would call me or bump into me or fall in love with me again."

"Again?" Patrick's voice is equally as soft. "Who said I was ever in love with you?"

He doesn't mean it harshly, but if it comes out blunter than he intended it doesn't matter, because Pete apparently isn't listening.

"I guess some things worked out even if everything else fails. I'm getting Bronx most of the time, I think, cause she's busier than me, and neither of us want him in daycare all the time, it's just cause, cause I was a mess. She'll let me have him. Eventually. And you - you, I dunno, I just, I guess you're still here. And I don't know why but I'm not complaining."

Patrick shrugs minutely, his hands moving to hold Pete's pyjama'd body in place, the fabric soft and his skin warm on top of him. It's a good weight, and the carpet is soft underneath him, and in the dim light the bags under Pete's eyes have disappeared. He takes so long replying that Pete thinks he's gone to sleep.

"I'm here," Patrick agrees, voice light though his words are heavy. "I'm always here. For you, anyway. Always."

"Always," Pete echoes sleepily, letting his eyes close and trying not to think of anything except how safe and warm and good the cliche sounds in his mouth, and how it sounds exactly like Patrick.


End file.
